Opportunity Rover Finds 6th Mars Meteorite

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After spending the
weekend studying a meteorite on Mars, NASA's rover Opportunity headed to yet
another space rock the sixth it has discovered on the Red Planet, SPACE.com
has learned.

Opportunity poked and
prodded meteorite No. 5 on Saturday (Sept. 25) and Sunday to get up close and
personal with the Martian rock. It had spotted the dark, toaster-sized rock at
the end of a drive on Sept. 16, and scientists immediately suspected it was an
iron meteorite after seeing the rover's photos. [ New
picture of the meteorite. ]

The rock has a dark
color and rounded texture, and it's perched on the Martian surface much like a
meteorite would be, rover scientists said.

Today (Sept. 27), the
rover wrapped up its study and hit the road again on its trek toward a large
crater.

But first, it will
swing by meteorite No. 6, which scientists just noticed when Opportunity was
checking out the earlier one, rover project scientist Bruce Banerdt, of NASA's
Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., told SPACE.com today.

This one also looks
to be an iron meteorite, and it's about 132 feet (40 meters) away, rover
scientists said. Opportunity will take some photos, but it won't linger long.

For now, scientists
will sift through the data and images
of the fifth meteorite, which has been given the informal name "Oilean
Ruaidh" (pronounced ay-lan ruah) a Gaelic name of an island off the
coast of northwestern Ireland.

Opportunity drove up
to take a close look at the meteorite on Sept. 22 and spent the weekend using a
camera and spectrometer at the tip of its robotic arm to study the object.

"It's definitely
an iron meteorite," Banerdt said.

Oilean Ruaidh is the
fifth iron meteorite the rover
has found since it began exploring the Meridiani Planum region
of Mars in 2004. Opportunity stopped to analyze three of the other four, so
there was some debate within the team about whether it should take the time to
inspect this one, too, Banerdt told SPACE.com.

But in the end, the
researchers decided it was worth it.

Meteorites on Mars

Oilean Ruaidh and
meteorite No. 6 are within about 5.5 miles (9 km) of the other four meteorites
Opportunity has discovered, Banerdt said.

The team is interested in knowing if they have a similar composition, and if
they're all pieces of what was once a much larger rock.

Such information
could help scientists better understand Mars' history of space-rock
bombardment, and it could help them learn more about the Red Planet's
atmosphere, Banerdt said.

Opportunity has now
driven more than 14.5 miles (23.3 km) on Mars, according to NASA officials. The
drive to Oilean Ruaidh took the total combined distance driven by Opportunity
and its twin, Spirit, to more than 19.26 miles (31 km).

Opportunity
and Spirit
both landed on Mars in January 2004. Their mission was initially slated to last
only about three months, but both far surpassed that lifetime.

Last year, Spirit got
bogged down in soft sand for good and, in January of this year, rover mission
managers rechristened the robot as a stationary probe. Spirit stopped
communicating with Earth in spring of this year, though
scientists are hoping to hear from it soon, NASA officials have said.

Opportunity, though,
is still going strong and headed to a huge crater called Endeavour, which will
be the largest Mars crater yet visited by a NASA rover.